Hey all—just a quick note to let y’all know that Jesse Glass will be reading with Andy Hirst & David Kennedy at the Rutland Arms in Sheffield this coming Saturday. For complete information, directions, etc. check out our site’s front page.

Recently received from Yoko Danno, The Blue Door. Thank you. In a few days, if I can squeeze a few placid moments into a crazy schedule, I hope to post my reflections on these pieces here. Thanks, Yoko. Looking forward.

Combining independently composed pieces,Yoko Danno and James C. Hopkins, through an unusual experiment that made the combination somewhat random, have succeeded in creating an intriguing sequence, a dream mosaic, which never lets go of the reader from start to finish.

—Hiroaki Sato, columnist for The Japan Times

Poetry allows us to go deeper into our minds, behind the screen of ordinary thoughts, and to let images and experiences arise as words that flow into verses.Yoko and James’ poems illuminate beautifully how our minds can relate in myriad ways to the web of life.

—Matthieu Ricard, author of Happiness, Cultivating Life’s Most Important Skill

It is hard to cite a single precedent for an artistic collaboration between a woman and a man, much less one between people from two different cultures. Together, Danno and Hopkins create poems that blend in the most organic way, contrasting and highlighting aspects of our humanity, and illuminating and delighting us with each line. The Blue Door leads to a familiar place that is unlike any other you’ll ever go.

—Christopher Stephens, senior editor, Kansai Time Out

The amulets in this grave sequence drop one by one through each other out of sight, no string of bubbles betraying where each might hang, or how deep—until as by chance the fretful mind coasts near. You take the book off the shelf and open it again. The procession resumes.

—Joe Ashby Porter, author of The Near Future

Click here for purchasing information.

Often overshadowed by such historical poets as Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, and Sylvia Plath, Ahadada Books is pleased to present selections from Manoah Bodman’s Orations on Death edited by Jesse Glass. The full text can be found here.

Salt Publishing is running an online poll to discover the “best UK independent poetry press”. Now, online polls are never scientific and are only accurate to plus-or-minus 100%. One shouldn’t get worked up about their wildly varying numbers, and websites like Salt Publishing shouldn’t rely on them fully. Remember, “the people who cast the votes don’t decide an election, the people who count the votes do.â€? Regardless of the worth of such exercises, some presses are clearly mobilizing their contacts.

Now we love Alan Halsey’s West House Books here at Ahadada. In fact, our most recent publication, The Passion of Phineas Gage and Selected Poems was co-published with West House. Let’s surprise Alan and Geraldine with some support from the other side of the pond!

Therefore, we are headed of to vote for West House books over here. Why not do the same?

You’ll find the poll by scrolling down a bit, on the left hand side. It just takes one click!

South Wales Echo is the first piece of our ‘Monumental Docs’ series. This series will work towards acquiring and organizing works that are not easily available on the web in order to preserve them as witnesses of important movements, places and people. As the series progresses, we intend to develop criteria to decide what ephemera to acquire, digitize, and save.

Check out our first piece, here.

… the cows are giving evaporated milk!

You can fry an egg on the sidewalk! Man, it might be hot—but this’ll be a big week for Ahadada. Older projects finishing up, and newer ones launching. Just bear with us. Toronto is experiencing rolling blackouts right now, so I might lose access for a half-day at a time.

More soon from the Western half of Ahadada! —Dan.